BART Police arrest another suspected repeat car burglar

BART Police arrest another suspected repeat car burglar

Oakland, CA – A criminal with a history of car break-ins is behind bars today after persistent BART Police followed his trail until they had an opportunity to make an arrest. 36-year-old Timothy William Pettett was taken into custody yesterday when an alert BART Police Sergeant spotted Pettett exiting a store located on East 9th Street in Oakland. Pettett was arrested without incident and faces charges of possessing stolen property, auto burglary and possession of a controlled substance.

“Many of the people whom we contact for unlawful behavior aren’t involved in just one crime, they’re involved in multiple types of offenses,” said BART Police Chief Kenton W. Rainey. “For some of these people, breaking the law is a way of life. If we can get them off the street it puts a dent in crime overall.”

Pettett’s latest brush with the law began May 28th when two BART Community Service Officers (CSOs) surprised Pettett while he was allegedly burglarizing cars in the Fruitvale Station garage. Pettett managed to get away but BART police gathered important evidence.

Yesterday morning at about 9:30, a CSO noticed a car that looked suspicious in the same garage and decided to run the license plate number. Police dispatch alerted officers that the car was a recently recovered stolen vehicle and linked to Pettett by Fremont Police. Pettett managed to give officers the slip again but was spotted hours later in a mall near Fruitvale Station. His trip to the store resulted in Pettett being arrested for his outstanding warrants that total $230,000.

The BART Police Department’s contacts with Pettett date back to 2006. Most of those contacts were for vehicle related offenses, he is currently on probation.

BART Police Officers and Community Service Officers regularly patrol BART parking lots to enhance the security already provided by the network of surveillance cameras. CSOs are uniformed civilian employees of the BART Police department equipped to deal with a variety of law enforcement tasks.